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Gov. Walker's approval rating below 40 percent

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker's approval ratings remain stagnant more than six months after he dropped out of the presidential race, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released Thursday.

His approval rating has suffered since he entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination last summer. A Marquette poll put his rating at 41.2 percent in April. The governor officially entered the race in July and spent most of the ensuring weeks out of Wisconsin in early primary states.

A Marquette poll in August put his approval rating at 39 percent. A month later, he dropped out of the crowded race. Another Marquette poll conducted days after he quit put his approval rating at 37 percent, the lowest since he took office in 2011. Polls in November and January put his approval rating at 38 percent.

The governor has been working to reconnect with Wisconsin residents since he got out of the presidential race, holding listening sessions around the state and championing a GOP legislative package designed to help college students deal with debt. But his State of the State speech in January lacked bold proposals and he's signed some contentious bills in the last month, including a measure revamping the state's century-old civil service system and defunding Planned Parenthood.

Charles Franklin, the poll's director, said Walker is still feeling the effects of his failed presidential bid as well as anger over the 2013-15 state budget. Members of his own party have disparaged the spending plan, including Republican Rep. Rob Brooks, who described the spending plan as "crap."

Franklin noted it took as long as a year for Walker's approval rating to rebound after he passed his signature law stripping most public workers of nearly all their union rights in 2011 and it's not realistic to think he can recover overnight.

The latest poll also found that 84 percent of respondents knew photo identification will be required at the polls. Ten percent said they believe — wrongly — that IDs aren't required; 6 percent said they didn't know.

Wisconsin's voter ID law went into effect in 2011 but court decisions put it on hold. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that the law is constitutional. It was in effect at the polls for the February primaries and voters will have to comply going forward.